Oscillating power tools are lightweight, handheld tools configured to oscillate various accessory tools and attachments, such as cutting blades, sanding discs, grinding tools, and many others. Accessory tools enable an oscillating power tool to be used to perform a wide variety of tasks from cutting woods and metals to polishing and grinding stone and masonry. Each accessory tool, however, typically is configured to perform only certain types of tasks on certain types of materials.
Referring to FIG. 1, previously known cutting accessory tools for an oscillating tool have a mounting portion and a blade portion. The mounting portion is configured to be secured to the drive of oscillating tool. The blade portion extends outwardly from the mounting portion and has a leading edge that is serrated or sharpened to serve as the cutting edge for the accessory tool.
As can be seen in FIG. 1, the mounting portion and blade portion of cutting blade accessory tools are typically formed by separate metal plates that are secured to each other, e.g., by welding. This allows the mounting portion to be formed by a thicker metal plate with greater strength and/or stiffness for securing the accessory tool to the drive of the oscillating tool and for supporting the blade portion and allows the blade portion to be formed of a thinner metal plate that is more appropriate for performing cuts.
While the configuration of cutting blade accessory tools, such as the tool depicted in FIG. 1, enables the cutting blade to be oscillated to perform cuts in a variety of materials, the configuration also limits the depth of cuts that can be performed. The cut depth is limited by the thicker mounting interface. Therefore, the cutting depth capability of the accessory tool corresponds to the distance between the cutting edge and the edge of the mounting interface.
The cut depth of an accessory tool, such as the accessory tool of FIG. 1, may be sufficient for most jobs. However, it is not sufficient for performing some jobs, such as cutting through a standard two-by-four piece of lumber. Since two-by-fours are so widely used, it would be beneficial to provide a cutting blade accessory tool for an oscillating tool having sufficient cutting depth to cut through two-by-fours. One method that could be used to increase the cut depth of the accessory tool is to simply increase the size of the blade portion of the tool. However, increasing the length of the blade portion of the tool will result in greater inertia and consequently result in greater loads on the drive mechanism and more vibrations.
What is needed is a configuration for a cutting blade accessory tool that enables an increased cut depth without increasing the length of the cutting blade portion of the tool.